Genetic Knowledge and Collective Identity (original) (raw)
Related papers
Genetic knowledge is paradigmatically laboratory knowledge, and yet its power does not rise or fall on scientific truth claims situated there. This is perhaps less obvious in cases where genetic knowledge circulates within the realm of science. However, nowadays, when genetic knowledge has left the laboratories to play an increasingly important role in everyday life (in the form of direct-to-consumer tests, genealogical research, forensics, etc.), the question of how and where knowledge is co-produced and how this affects the lives of people merits more attention. Take the example of race. If the persistent sociological debunking of race, indicating that it is an illegitimate scientific category, fails to undermine the social power of race, that might spur us to ground our analysis elsewhere. This Special Issue investigates a range of objects and cases to show the value of moving our analysis of race and biomedicine beyond the lab. Specifically, we ask, how are genetic ideas of race taken up, deployed, and potentially reworked outside the laboratory environment in instances or events such as a Mayan ceremony at a human rights forensic genetics lab in Guatemala; a grassroots Race Against Blood Cancers recruitment drive by and for ethnic minorities in the UK; a fair-skinned mother with sickle cell trait mobilising "legitimate suffering" in a patient-activist group in Brazil; a US lawsuit claiming that a "mixed-race" child born from a sperm donor mix-up was "wrongfully born"; the complicated relationships with Chineseness in population genetics projects in Vietnam and Singapore; the pursuit of an
BioSocieties, 2021
Genetic knowledge is paradigmatically laboratory knowledge, and yet its power does not rise or fall on scientific truth claims situated there. This is perhaps less obvious in cases where genetic knowledge circulates within the realm of science. However, nowadays, when genetic knowledge has left the laboratories to play an increasingly important role in everyday life (in the form of direct-to-consumer tests, genealogical research, forensics, etc.), the question of how and where knowledge is co-produced and how this affects the lives of people merits more attention. Take the example of race. If the persistent sociological debunking of race, indicating that it is an illegitimate scientific category, fails to undermine the social power of race, that might spur us to ground our analysis elsewhere. This Special Issue investigates a range of objects and cases to show the value of moving our analysis of race and biomedicine beyond the lab. Specifically, we ask, how are genetic ideas of race taken up, deployed, and potentially reworked outside the laboratory environment in instances or events such as a Mayan ceremony at a human rights forensic genetics lab in Guatemala; a grassroots Race Against Blood Cancers recruitment drive by and for ethnic minorities in the UK; a fair-skinned mother with sickle cell trait mobilising "legitimate suffering" in a patient-activist group in Brazil; a US lawsuit claiming that a "mixed-race" child born from a sperm donor mix-up was "wrongfully born"; the complicated relationships with Chineseness in population genetics projects in Vietnam and Singapore; the pursuit of an an unknown Turkish suspect in the Dutch policing system? What do these diverse stories tell us about genetics? And how do they advance our thinking about the complicated relations between genetics and race?
Introduction: Anthropology in an Age of Genetics
2019
Genetic nature/culture : anthropology and science beyond the two-culture divide / edited FIGURES 2.1. The "Amish Madonna" / 47 2.2. A polydactylous dwarf / 52 7.1. Molecular homology / 142 7.2. Some diagnostic differences between human chromosomes / 144 7.3. Ape, fish, human comparison / 147 12.1. Models of recent human evolution / 240 12.2. Portrayals of human genetic distances / 243 12.3. Genetic distance and isolation by geographic distance / 245 TABLES 13.1. Selected high incidence of genetic disorders / 268 13.2. Ethnicities or groups primarily affected by disorders (U.S.) / 268 13.3. Ethnic or group variation with incidence of cystic fibrosis / 270 14.1. Anthropological applications of ancient DNA techniques / 280 i l l u s t r at i o n s vii x sydel silverman xii sydel silverman xiv sydel silverman xvi preface and acknowledgments preface and acknowledgments xvii On June 26, 2000, the rival scientific factions vying to complete the DNA sequencing of the human genome declared a truce. The race that might have been won by a single victor was set aside, and credit for completing a working draft of the sequence was to be shared by the Human Genome Project's international, publicly funded consortium and by Celera Genomics, a private company. At the press conference where this laying down of arms was announced, President Bill Clinton stood flanked by Craig Venter, the head of Celera, and Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health's Human Genome Project (HGP) in the United States. The sequence was front-page news; the top banner of the New York Times declared, "Genetic Code of Human Life Is Cracked by Scientists" (June 27, 2000). This very public and reluctant coalition of a government-sponsored, transnational scientific program and a biotechnology industry heavyweight is just one node in a wide-ranging, heterogeneous network of human and nonhuman actors that constitutes genetics-inaction (pace Latour 1987; cf. Flower and Heath 1993; Heath 1998a,b). The knowable, manipulable human genome also belongs to health advocates living with particular heritable diseases, who raise research funding and run on-line forums (Heath et al. 1999; Taussig, Rapp, and Heath, chapter 3, this volume). It belongs to scientists in Japan, China, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, as well as to DNA "donors" (voluntary or not) from Iceland and the Amazon. And it is the province of essential nonhuman players, from centralized sequence databases and their search engines to genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Genomes, human and other, are dynamic, emergent entities still under negotiation as territory, property, soul, medical resource, and national prize. Meanwhile, narratives of both technoscientific expertise and everyday life have come to be scripted in a genetic idiom deployed by laypeople and experts alike.
The Social Construction of Genetic Identities: A Research Note
This article is written as a research note, aiming to explore some contentious issues related to the emergence of genetic testing and the production of genetic knowledge. Adhering to the idea of a social construction of technology, the article discusses the co-evolution of social relations in health care and the emergence of new genetic testing procedures. Special attention is paid to the relationship between a convergence of technologies, resulting in the emergence of applied genomics, and the emergence of new identities, referred to as genetic identities. The article proposes to add to the idea of a social construction of technology that of a technical construction of society, identifying some major research questions and a methodology for research.
Boundaries in Genetic Discourse: Racial & Ethnic Self-Identification
Communication Research Reports, 2007
The findings of the Human Genome Project and related initiatives provide a commentary on the origins of humans, the interrelatedness of human groups, and differences among sub-populations. These findings challenge ways that various ethnic and racial groups traditionally define themselves and their histories. This has led to some resistance among ethnic minority groups to these genetic research projects. To address these issues, the researchers conducted a random-sample survey concerning the relationship between racial=ethnic self-identification and attitudes toward genomics, religious importance, and attitudes toward science. Our data indicate that people who self-identify themselves into different racial and ethnic groups differ significantly in their attitudes toward genomics.
Social Aspects of Genetic Testing Technologies
Sociology Compass, 2009
Since the early days of the Human Genome Project, there has been increasing social scientific research that promises to elucidate the social implications, aspects or dimensions of research on human, animal and plant genetics. This paper discusses the literature on the social aspects of different types of genetic testing technologies and their applications in the contexts of clinical medicine, biomedical research, personal and family genealogy, and criminal justice. Although there are many differences in the practices, purposes and organization of these technologies across such contexts, this paper shows that social scientists' understandings of their social aspects centers on individual and collective experiences of how genetic testing technologies operate in practice.